§ Mr. VazTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence what steps his Department is taking to assist in the global elimination of anti-personnel land mines. [45140]
§ Mr. George RobertsonI have on a number of occasions underlined my commitment to doing as much as possible to achieve this objective. My hon. Friend will recall my letter of 27 January, in which I set out our plans to destroy all of the Army's operational stockpiles of anti-personnel land mines by 1 January 2000—well ahead of the deadline set by the Ottawa Convention. I am delighted to say that plans have now also been put in place to destroy the HB 876 anti-personnel submunition of the RAF's JP233 Airfield Denial Weapon by the same date.
The MOD is also heavily involved in addressing the problem of the millions of mines that are the legacy of devastating conflicts around the world. We have made good progress in implementing the five point action plan on humanitarian demining I announced in October last year—in particular, the Mine Information and Training 424W Centre at Minley is now fully operational—and we continue to look for ways to do more; the recent gifting of 10 demining tractors to the HALO Trust is one example of our commitment in this area.